Brown does right by schools, students

Gov. Jerry Brown is moving to reshape the world's biggest public education system, the 112-campus state community college system.

The Record

Gov. Jerry Brown is moving to reshape the world's biggest public education system, the 112-campus state community college system.

It is no small task and his proposals likely will meet with opposition. But by pushing the schools forward - and by extension their students - he does both good.

Some of Brown's proposals are spot on, for example giving priority to full-time students and limiting the number of units a student can accumulate before the price goes up.

Despite complaints that that would keep students from changing majors or career goals - something that happens all the time - giving priority to full-time students means they could more easily get the classes they need when they need them. And limiting the number of state tuition-subsidized units a student can stack up means they are forced to decide on a career path rather than just wandering about the campus trying "to find themselves."

That's not too much to ask when taxpayers are picking up most of the tab for a system that's already faced enormous budget cuts.

Some of Brown's proposals are dicier, for example his plan to only forward state funding to individual schools after students have completed courses rather than the current system of paying for students enrolled a month into each term. The idea is to make sure students complete the courses before paying the bill. The danger is creating an incentive for colleges to offer easier courses and for students to take less-demanding classes, that is dumbing down the system.

Brown's proposals build on reasonable changes proposed last year by a statewide task force charged with improving the colleges.

Measures approved by the Legislature and Board of Governors establish registration priorities, including preventing students from repeating courses to improve their grades and allowing students who participate in orientation and academic assessment programs and have 100 units or fewer to enroll in classes first. Students also would have to maintain satisfactory grades to continue to qualify for fee waivers.

But Brown goes further, and wisely so, but refusing to subsidize forever a public college student. He would limit students to 90 units - roughly three years worth of full-time units at our two-year community colleges. After that the subsidized per unit rate of $46 would go to the full cost of instruction, roughly $190 per unit.

And if you don't think hangers-on are a problem, consider that in the 2009-10 academic year there were 120,000 community college students who had earned 90 units or more. That's 120,000 community college class seats not available to students desperate to get through the system.

California's community colleges, while not as prestigious or well-known as schools in our University of California and California State University system, are vital to this state's education system. They serve about 2.4 million students.

But consider this: during the Great Recession, space for an additional 500,000 students was cut.

It's imperative we protect the system, make it as strong and efficient as possible, but also as available as possible.